Privacy Policy

Last updated: 30 October 2026

This policy follows South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). It covers everyone who joins the waitlist, becomes a member or buys from us on Etsy.

1. Who we are

The Conservatory is run by Creative Faith Studio, a South African business, which is responsible for your personal information. Our Information Officer is Martie Erasmus. Contact: conservatory@creativefaithstudio.co.za.

2. What we collect

Waitlist: your name, email address, the design world you choose, your country and how you heard about us.
Members: your name, email address, login details, country, membership plan, and the dates and status of your payments.
Payments: Paystack processes every payment. We never see or store your full card details.
Etsy buyers: Etsy shares your name and order details with us so we can deliver your files and answer questions.
Messages: anything you send us by email, including complaints and support questions.
Live sessions: your name and email address if you register for a Zoom session.

3. Why we use it

To give you access to the library and run your membership (needed to provide what you signed up for).
To process payments, send receipts and keep business and tax records (required by law).
To send you emails about The Conservatory, new releases and related Creative Faith Studio offers, only if you agreed to receive them.
To answer your questions and improve the library, for example by seeing which design worlds members choose.

4. Emails

You only receive marketing emails if you signed up for them. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Members still receive essential emails about their account and payments while their membership is active.

5. Who we share it with

We never sell or rent your personal information. We share it only with the services that help us run The Conservatory:

Kit, which sends our emails and stores the email list
Paystack, which processes payments
Cloudflare, which hosts The Conservatory website
HostAfrica, which hosts our email and the Creative Faith Studio website
Zoom, for live sessions
Etsy, for purchases made on Etsy (Etsy's own privacy policy also applies there)

We may also share information when the law requires it.

6. Information stored outside South Africa

Some of these services, such as Kit, Cloudflare and Zoom, store information outside South Africa, including in the United States. We use well-established providers that protect personal information to a standard comparable to POPIA.

7. How long we keep it

Waitlist and email list details: until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them.
Membership and payment records: for as long as you are a member, then for 5 years after your membership ends, as South African tax law requires.
Support messages: for as long as needed to resolve the matter and keep a fair record.

8. Keeping it safe

We use secure, password-protected accounts with each provider, limit access to Creative Faith Studio, and never store card details ourselves.

9. Your rights

You can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or stop using it for marketing. Email conservatory@creativefaithstudio.co.za and we will reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with how we handle your information, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za). We honour these rights for every member, wherever you live.

10. Age

The Conservatory is for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger.

11. Cookies

Our website only uses the cookies it needs to work. These keep you logged in to your member account, keep your session secure and process your membership. Our sign-up form (Kit), our website host (Cloudflare) and our payment provider (Paystack) may also set small cookies to protect the site, recognise you when you return and complete your payment safely. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits. It does not use cookies and does not identify you. We do not use cookies for advertising, and we do not track you across other websites. If we ever add advertising or tracking tools, we will name them here and ask your permission first.

12. Changes

We may update this policy. We will email members about important changes and always show the date of the latest version on this page.